Newton’s inclination, especially in the last years of his life, to emphasise his visionary genius as opposed to the more prosaic, if more real, tireless worker, is also apparent in other descriptions of how he made his discoveries: “I kept the problem constantly before me, and waited until the first dawns slowly, slowly, slowly turned into full, clear light”. The way Newton told the story of the apple, it would seem that he saw the apple fall and the whole dynamic of planetary motion became clear in his mind. There is a power, like that which we call gravity here, which extends to the whole universe”. That is why this apple falls perpendicularly or towards the centre of the Earth. There must be a power of attraction in matter: and the sum of the earth’s power of attraction must be at the centre of the earth, and not somewhere else on the earth. Why does the apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, he asked himself, why doesn’t it go the other way or upwards? Surely the reason is that the earth attracts it. It was suggested by the fall of an apple when he was sitting in contemplation. Among other things, he told me that it was in that very situation that the notion of gravitation had occurred to him. Newton told it to him shortly before he died and, naturally, Stukeley included it in his Life of Newton (1752): “After lunch, the weather being warm, I went into the garden to take tea with Sir Isaac under the shade of some apple trees, he and I were alone. One of them was told to William Stukeley, Newton’s compatriot who was preparing a biography of Sir Isaac. Newton managed to come up with a story that, in the end, was to have as much or even more power than the Archimedean Eureka! And I have written “managed to hit upon”, because it was Newton himself who, already in his seventies, used to tell the anecdote to anyone who came within reach – up to four independent versions have been preserved, all of them told by an elderly Newton. The most famous of these is the Eureka story – who, regardless of their cultural level, does not know it today? – but there are also many others with an undeniable propagandistic capacity. Newton probably understood very well that the halo of genius that had surrounded Archimedes since time immemorial had to do with the excellence of his discoveries, but also with certain striking stories recorded by the chroniclers of antiquity. Archimedes just before he shouted Eureka! (after to a 16th century engraving) Something similar had happened before with Archimedes and the Eureka! anecdote. There is something spooky in the simplicity of the Newton’s apple anecdote, and in how useful it has been throughout history in popularising the figure of Newton as a genius.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |